Nanoka Ayase
Nanoka Ayase (綾瀬 菜乃花 Ayase Nanoka) is a first-year student in high school and the heroine of the series. Appearance Nanoka is a beautiful young woman with light brown hair with reddish hues reaching mid-length past her shoulders and light orange-brown eyes. When she was in middle school, her hair was cut short and ended right before reaching her shoulders. She has been noted by the "Manager" of having a transparent like appearance. However, other characters like Hayata have remarked that she has a cute appearance. Personality Nanoka is described by other characters as being doll-like and docile with a mysterious atmosphere that makes her hard to approach. She doesn't clearly articulate what she wants or means to say unless heavily provoked. However, after meeting Hayata, she slowly becomes more straightforward and direct. In part 2, she suffers from selective amnesia and returns to her former persona albeit a bit more emotionless and colder than the former. Background In middle school, Nanoka was a part of the student council where she met Takato. They dated briefly and then broke up after she heard him lying about their relationship. When she begins her first high-school year, she is first approached by Yuuko and the two become friends with Chisato joining their group shortly after. Relationships [[Hayata Kiriyama|'Hayata Kiriyama']] Main article: Nanoka & Hayata [[Takato Uesugi|'Takato Uesugi']] Part 1 When Nanoka was in middle school, she was confessed to by Takato. Sensing that he really liked her, she agreed to go out with him while believing she will come to like him eventually. She and Takato had a hard time communicating often resulting in her silence and his anger outbursts. The first and only date-like experience the two had was a school trip to a pasture which ended in rain and silence. Their relationship came to a close after Nanoka heard Takato lying to his friends, saying they had kissed and called Nanoka a daring girl. After Nanoka called him out for this, Takato forcefully tried to kiss her but she pushed him away and stopped talking to him. Shortly after, she overheard Takato telling his friends the he broke up with Nanoka, not the other way around. The two met again at a Karaoke bar when Takato saves Nanoka from Daichi's advances. Upon telling him that she has someone she likes, he forcefully kisses her in jealousy. Nanoka consoles with Yuuko who tells her that she needs to set Takato straight so that he will leave Nanoka alone. The two met again and as Nanoka confesses her newfound love for Hayata with him, he decides to give up on her. However, a spark of jealousy insinuates as he hears he talk to Hayata on the phone, resulting in him telling Nanoka to keep the kiss a secret. Takato later saves Nanoka from them, resulting in a heavy beating and a crying Nanoka pleading him to let her call an ambulance. Nanoka was thankful that Takato saved her as she confessed that she froze and nearly blacked out when the men approached her. Sometime after, Takato approaches Nanoka outside her home to confess that he has always loved her and that he won't apologize for the forced kiss. He watches as Nanoka falls in despair hearing this. Takato meets her again at Hayata's volleyball match where he tries to tell Nanoka he wants to start over, only to have her cry yet again and run away with Hayata. Part 2 After Nanoka choose Hayata, Takato sends her a text saying that she can forget everything. However, he ends up transferring to her school. Nanoka tries to distant herself from him only to have him contradict his previous words as he pleads Nanoka not to forget him. Nanoka's reactions towards Takato become defensive and fearful. However, her reactions towards him become genuinely friendly after confiding with Hayata about the situation. Though she believes that this is fine, she doesn't realize that trying to be friends with Takato is only hurting him more as he wishes to have Nanoka for himself. This later proves true as Takato tries to commit a double suicide by trapping Nanoka in a room at the school festival as it proceeds to burn on fire. As they talk about their past, Nanoka jokingly quotes Takato with the "you were a different person than I thought." As Nanoka catches on to the fire breaking through, Takato believes that he should push her out the school window to end it all. However, he quickly snaps out of this state of mind when Ouji intervenes. Despite seeing another person do onto Nanoka what Takato was attempting to do, he does not admit that he was in the wrong and is shocked when Hayata calls his out for his actions. Yuuko Nanoka and Yuuko start off initially with the same level of friendship she shares with Chisato at the beginning of the story. Yuuko gets frustrated when Nanoka does not rely on she or Chisato and initially lashed out at Nanoka when she rejected a boy's confession. Their relationship grows strong when Nanoka confesses that she was forcefully kissed by someone she didn't like and didn't know what to do. Yuuko gives Nanoka advice and she confides in Yuuko for other scenarios she faces throughout the story. In Part 2 of the story, Nanoka distances herself from Yuuko and Chisato as she believes she is protecting them from the harassment of Takato's fangirls. They later make-up and work on the school festival together where Nanoka finds herself in a deadly situation. Yuuko looks for Nanoka in the midst of the school on fire. Chisato Though Chisato is both friends with Yuuko and Nanoka, her relationship is not as strong with Nanoka as she wants it to be in the beginning of the story. She becomes slightly jealous knowing the Nanoka confides more in Yuuko than she does her. She gives love advice to Nanoka in regards to her relationship with Hayata. In Part 2 of the story, Chisato becomes jealous of Nanoka's past relationship with Takato from middle school. They quickly make-up, but Chisato mistakenly exposes her knowledge to Takato's fangirls who take the information the wrong way and proceed to bully Nanoka. Her mistake causes Nanoka to distance herself from the group as she believes it is better for her to handle it alone. The quickly make-up and both Chisato and Yuuko declare that they will handle the situation together and will not leave Nanoka alone. Ouji Karasuma Nanoka first meets Ouji when he randomly approaches her at a subway station. He proclaims his newfound love for her and while Nanoka is shocked by the similarities of his voice to Hayata, she quickly dismisses his confession as a passing fling. Her dismissal of Ouji's confession leads to his hatred and obsession with her. Though Ouji is unaware of it, Takato realizes that his hatred for Nanoka is actually love when Hayata questions why Nanoka seems to attract "extreme people" (referring to Ouji and Takato). Ouji takes Nanoka captive and taunts her as he threatens to jump off the school roof with her. Ouji is the only character that Nanoka has proclaimed to hate in the series. Quotes * (to Takato) "I like him. I even feel unsatisfied...just saying that I like him. It's a lot...a lot stronger than that." * (to Takato) "The wound I received from you, is the reason for the love I have now." * (to Hayata) "I'm so sorry for destroying so many things that are precious to you...and your feelings." * (to herself) "Just because you love someone, just because you have feelings for that person, a kiss that person does not want, how that person would feel after that; I knew it all along, didn't I? I, of all people, knew very, very well." * (to Hayata) "When Takato-kun was aggressive with me, I was really scared. But just now, with you, I wasn't scared at all. If anything it made me happy." * (to Ouji) "I hate you!" * (to Takato) "I promised to come here with the person I loved. That was not a promise that I made with you, Takato-kun..." Trivia * Nanoka's birthday is the same day as the Hinamatsuri festival in Japan; also known as Girls' Day. * She ranked 2nd place in the first popularity poll (2017) with 22.3% of the votes. References -